Cafeteria worker changes lives with bananas

The first two years of a child’s life is said to develop into their basic personalities and shows them many life lessons that they will keep forever. 

The start of kindergarten and through first grade is said to be a predictor of their entire school career.  Development in these early years is beyond important, it is imperative to have success and enjoyment for these tots to grown up into productive, happy adults.

Grade school should be a place of comfort and safety for children to be educated properly.  When students are less than comfortable, not happy, or scared, they aren’t going to be focused on their school careers.  One important cafeteria worker could see this happening first hand.

Stacey Truman has been working at Kingston Elementary School in VA Beach, VA for the past 9 years.  As a cafeteria worker she was able to be in contact with most all of the children in the school on a daily basis.  She saw with her own eyes when children were having a bad day, weren’t happy, or just didn’t seem right.

As a mother herself, Stacey recognized the importance of having a good experience at school instead of one that was tainted with fear and sadness.

Stacey’s job is to serve up hot lunches for the children, but she decided to go one step further.  She created something called talking bananas.

As simple as it sounds, it has had an amazing outcome for the children’s day.

With a permanent black marker, Stacey writes personal messages on each banana before it hits the student’s trays.  She writes things like

“Be your best self” and “You’re a superhero.”  These few words scrolled on a banana has the effect of making the children feel special, have more confidence and it cheers them up.  It gives them something to look forward to.  It’s their surprise lunch message!

The happy smile on the children’s faces as they received their personal message was all of the reward that Stacey needed.

She is an inspiration for what one person can do to change so many lives.  Her efforts were never known beyond the simple borders of the school until the principal decided to change that.

School principal Sharon Shewbridge took a picture of Stacey’s ‘talking bananas’ and posted it to her Twitter page.  The picture went viral and started spreading to all edges of the world.  These bananas, and of course, the wonderful soul behind them, deserve all the recognition in the world!  Let’s have a big hats off to Stacey for loving our children above and beyond her call of duty.  Imagine if more people took that extra loving step.  What a wonderful world it would make.